Great Lovers—an
Interlude—Nanette Poll
I have rather deliberately avoided
intruding my own rather sorry failures in this series except I decided that I
would, before I complete the series with the story of my roommate, Rob Talbert,
tell the story of an incident in my own dating career that is so completely
similar to one that Rob had, that it would be instructive.
One of the things we did while I
was a graduate student at BYU is have what we called “family home evening
groups”. These consisted usually of an
apartment of girls, two male home teachers, and any surplus boys who were not
themselves assigned as home teachers.
One year I was assigned as senior home teacher with Neil Whitaker—at
that time a freshman student—as junior to an apartment of girls with five girls
in the apartment. One of those girls was
Nanette Poll, a very attractive girl who was herself a graduate student in
library science.
One of our duties as home teachers
was not only to hold a weekly home evening, but also to go over to the apartment
for a nightly “family prayer”. Being at
the time about 30 years of age and still not married, i.e. somewhat desperate,
and also thus being constantly thrown into the presence of so attractive a
young lady, I became quite enamored of Nanette.
I began to believe by certain things she did and said that the feeling
was reciprocated. There were two things
holding me back from asking Nanette out on a date. The first, and admittedly, more minor problem
was her family, specifically her father.
Nanette was the daughter of Richard
Poll, an alumnus both, I believe as a student and as a professor. He was highly thought of because he was one
of the few (back then) who had gone on from BYU to success in the “real
academic world”. He was an administrator
at the University of Illinois
The second, and real problem, was
my Elder’s Quorum president, Ron Knudson.
Ron was the eldest of five Knudsons in our ward. They were all pretty much “Iron Rods” (with
the exception of the youngest girl, who like almost all youngest children, was
rather—or so it seemed to me—spoiled, but that is neither here nor there for
this issue). At any rate, Ron was
definitely a “Steel Rod” Mormon and tempered steel at that and he made it an
absolute, definite no-no that a home teacher would even in the most casual way
date someone in his Home Evening Family . I talked with my good friend, Rondy Bentley
about the problem, thinking that maybe he could put in a good word for me and
get Ron to bend a little bit. Rondy was
Ron’s brother-in-law, having married Patty Knudson, much to the chagrin of
those of us who thought that Patty was probably the best catch in the ward and
had some hopes in that direction ourselves—but I digress. Anyway, Rondy was all sympathy and having
made an excellent catch himself was eager to help in any way he could, a friend
do likewise, but did you ever try to bend a steel rod? Ron said, “absolutely not.” And the
“absolutely was capitalized, italicized, underlined with several exclamation
points after it.
Well, as the year wore on, I became
more and more convinced that any hope I could have of any little bit of
happiness in this life and even hereafter was tied to Nanette Poll. Furthermore, I somehow became convinced that
she felt the same way. In hindsight, I’m not sure what evidence I had of
Nanette’s feeling for me, but when you are 30 and not married your deductive
skills with the respect to girls is not always—maybe not even usually—the sharpest.
Finally, about 3 weeks before the end of
the school year, I decided to put it to Ron squarely. “Look, Ron,” I said firmly, or, at least, as
firmly as I could muster. Whenever I
talked with Ron, and especially when I talked with him firmly, I had the
feeling that it was rather like jello going up against steel and I rather
wished that I had been a little bit more devout in my prayers and scripture
reading to sort of give me the steel rod sort of confidence, but I digress. “Look, Ron,” I said (in case you have
forgotten), “it’s almost the end of the year.
Summer break is coming up and Nanette Poll will be going home or
somewhere other than here and I may never see her again and all my hopes of
marriage and happiness will vanish like the wind.” Of course, since that was many years ago, I’m
not sure that that is exactly what I said, in fact, I’m pretty sure I phrased
it much more powerfully than that, being, as I was back then, particularly good
at phrasing things powerfully, but at any rate, that is more or less, the
rather watered down gist of what I said.
“Well, I can’t let you date anyone
in your family home evening group, and, quite frankly, I think you’re kidding
yourself about this whole thing,” he said, and I must say, he said it rather forcefully. “I’ll tell you what I will do, I will release
you. Then you can date her.”
That was all the incentive I
needed. I just knew that my bachelor
days were all but over. I announced my
release at family prayer that evening and introduced my replacement. I then went home and asked Nanette out for
three dates that very weekend. Friday
night was a group date with three couples that several of us had planned for
some time. Saturday night was a dance
and Sunday night was a fireside with Ezra Taft Benson. I pretty much assumed that by the next
weekend we would be engaged and working out the final arrangements for our
wedding.
I had planned that I would kiss her
on the very first date. While generally
opposed to first date kisses and I don’t believe I had ever done it, I felt
that this was an exception. After all,
we were, I felt, in all but the actual details, i.e. engagement announcement,
buying the rings, setting the date, mailing out invitations—that sort of
thing—more or less a married couple already.
Well, the first date kiss didn’t
work out. We did have a good time, but
since there were three of us couples and I wasn’t driving, they dropped Nanette
off first and since there were two other couples looking at us, I hardly felt that
it would be appropriate to begin mad embraces in front of an audience. But I was sure that I could correct that on
the next date.
The next date—as I mentioned, a
dance—was a disaster. It was as though
both of us assumed that marriage was inevitable and, therefore, we wanted to
make some things perfectly clear right at the outset. What I had assumed would be a wonderful
evening dancing enchantedly in each others arms turned into one long argument
about politics and religion. By the time
I took her home, I realized I had made a huge mistake in bringing the subjects
up at all and I was busy backtracking as best I could, but the feelings were
such that there was certainly no question of kissing. I was lucky to get out a smile and a “thank
you” carefully avoiding the usual “for a wonderful evening”.
By the next night I was wishing
that I had asked her out for Sunday evening to something—anything—other than a
fireside by Ezra Taft Benson since I knew he would probably speak on politics
and that would widen the rift between us.
Fortunately, I thought, Pres. Benson had decided to talk about something
else. I assumed that because he started
his talk by saying, “Most of you probably think you know exactly what I am
going to talk about.” I assumed that he
wouldn’t begin that way, if, in fact, he planned to give his usual political
talk. I was wrong.
About the only thing Nanette said
to me on the way home was, “I can’t believe that you would subject me to that
kind of talk, knowing how I feel.”
Well, I decided that in order to
salvage what I had initially assumed would be a smooth-running courtship that I
needed to do something that would avoid even the appearance of politics. So our
next date was to be romantic drive over the Alpine loop. I had envisioned us looking out over the
scenery and waxing enthusiastic about the wonders of nature, the beauty of
pristine forests, and the majesty of the Wasatch
Mountains
What actually happened was that the
moment she got into the car she began telling me that I had turned out to be
completely different than the person she had envisioned for these past
months. She felt that I was, in fact, a
religious fanatic and a political bigot and that we should no longer date or
even see each other except at church where it could not be avoided. As it turns out, the drive over the Alpine
loop takes about two hours so she lent considerable embellishment to what I
have above abridged into two sentences, also approaching the subject from
several different angles with an occasional cross reference, but the gist was
as described above. So after descending
from the Alpine loop, I drove her home.
Needless to say, we did not end the evening in each other’s arms, nor
was there a good-night kiss.
Somebody, I believe it was Pope—the
poet not the pontiff--, said, Hope springs eternal in the human breast. When he said that I think that he had 30 year
old bachelors who desperately want to get married in mind. At any rate, I was convinced that Nanette
really did not mean what she had said.
After all, we had been flirting with each other for months. I was sure that after a little reflection,
she would change her mind completely.
Sure enough, the next Sunday a
church, she was very cordial—going so far as to actually ask me how I was
feeling. This gave me encouragement and
I decided to ask her out. It turns out
there was the perfect “non-comittal” date available that week. Our ward had won the Stake Roadshow
competition and for the last Mutual of the school year they were staging a
repeat performance. Since it was during
a weekday, I felt that it would be the perfect “patch-up” date, since it also
would be relatively short and we would be among friends. So I asked her out to that.
“I thought I told you,” she began
emphatically and my heart stopped (people always say that, but, of course, it
didn’t really stop, but I did fear the worst), but then she suddenly
stopped. “Sure,” she said after a rather
long pause, “Why not? I’d love to go.”
So, I decided, she had indeed changed her mind. Right in the middle to turning me down, I
reasoned, she recognized that she had made a terrible mistake.
With a feeling of high anticipation
for a great evening, I picked Nanette up on Wednesday. Since the theater in which the play was to be
performed was only about 4 or 5 blocks away, we had agreed we would walk.
Nanette greeted me with a smile and
invited me in. Although it was late in
May, the weather was a little chilly so she had me help her on with a light
jacket. “This should be an interesting
evening,” she commented as we stepped out the door. Indeed it was.
As soon as we got to the sidewalk
she began walking very rapidly. I picked
up my own pace to catch up with her, assuming that she was in a hurry to get to
the meeting. But as soon as I caught up
to her she slowed down so I passed her up.
I immediately slowed my pace, but as soon as we were side-by-side again
she again picked up the pace and speeded in front of me. I again picked up my pace and soon caught up
to her. “Ah come on, Nanette,” I
pleaded, “this is silly. At least we can
walk together and talk.” She said nary a
word but again slowed down to a crawl.
As soon as we were side-by-side again, she again picked up the
pace. At that point I simply gave up and
walked behind her the rest of the way to the meeting.
We arrived at the meeting just as
it was beginning. Nanette took a seat
and I sat next to her, almost afraid that she might make a verbal protest, but
she didn’t. During the play, which only
lasted about 20 minutes, she did, however, carefully place both of her hands on
the side of her body away from me, making it abundantly clear that there was to
be no physical contact whatsoever.
After the play refreshments were
served and everyone mingled, reminiscing about experiences over the past school
year. To me, this was the most
remarkable and yet, most embarrassing part of the date. If you have ever seen a movie in which there
is an angel or a ghost which some of the people in a room can see, but others
cannot, you can get a feeling for the remarkable part of the experience. Nanette acted like I was, to her at least,
completely invisible. When talking with
friends she would look past me or to the side as though there was nothing there
in the space I was occupying.
Furthermore, whenever I was referred to, which I frequently was early in
the conversation, Nanette would act like she had not heard and continue the
conversation as if I had not even been mentioned. Of course, this soon became horribly
embarrassing since it became clear to everyone there that she didn’t want to
have anything to do with me, even though we were, sort of anyway,
together. I could tell that several
people wanted to get me alone so they could ask me what happened, but I stuck
persistently to Nanette’s side. Across
the room Ron Knudsen smiled at me and mouthed the words, “I knew this would
happen. I warned you.”
After about half hour or 45 minutes
of this I said to Nanette, “I’ve had enough of this. Let’s go.”
This time she heard me and we walked out together.
The walk home was exactly like the
walk there, with me trying to walk by her side and with Nanette immediately
either speeding up or slowing down.
Finally, I simply followed her home following at several paces behind
her. When she got to her porch I bounded
up so I could open the door for her.
“You need not bother to come in,” she said forcefully. “I can take my coat off by myself.” She then closed the door leaving me standing
there for a few seconds. Finally, I
turned to go, but as I did so the door opened.
“By the way, Merrill,” Nanette said in almost a mockingly sweet tone of
voice, “have we learned something tonight?”
“I hope so,” I responded lamely as
I left her porch, not really sure what I was supposed to have learned other
than the fact that when a girl tells you she doesn’t want to date you anymore,
she probably means it. That, I am sorry
to say, was not the first time I had learned that lesson and am even sorrier to
have to say, it was not the last, but it was certainly the most forceful
presentation of the lesson.
BRIEF
ADDENDUM
Several years later I was sitting
reading in the Salt Lake City
library when I heard someone call my name.
It was Nanette. She was working
at the library. We exchanged histories
briefly. She had married and was happy,
which by that time I could also say, although she had been married much longer
than I. (At the time of the incident
reported above I was still 5 or even 6 years from marriage.) Best of all, she was happy to see me and no
longer seemed to care that I had asked her out after she had so explicitly told
me not to.
